Candy Land and the Avenue of Dreams.
Massachusetts Avenue, a diagonal running street on the downtown's near Northeastside, had a long history of attracting dreamers and schemers, up-and-comers and those down on their luck. Some times things worked out, and even for a long time, some times they didn't.
A young immigrant named Nick Banos would find his way to Massachusetts Avenue in the late-1910s. Leaving Greece at age fifteen, he passed through Ellis Island, and then by train across the country, heading to St. Louis, where his cousin and sponsor, Jim Zapapas, worked in a candy store. By the time he arrived in Missouri, young Banos learned that his cousin had relocated to a confectionery shop in Indianapolis. So he took his cousin's place and worked at the candy shop in St. Louis, learning the trade for a few years, until war broke out, and he joined the U.S. Army. He served in World War I until Armistice Day, then relocated to Indiana and worked with his cousin in his candy store, located on Massachusetts Avenue. His story and his subsequent years running his own store, the Candy Kitchen, for 61 years, in Franklin, Indiana, is detailed in an August 30, 1983 article by Mike Redmond in The Indianapolis News.
Banos' sweet American dream is perhaps typical of the risk, the sacrifice, the hard work and opportunity required for success in the hard-knock world of private enterprise that built the original flourish along Massachusetts Avenue. Businesses such as Stout's Shoes, the Marott Department Store, Haag Drug Store and many others, thrived for decades.
During this 20th Century boom, the most impressive flat-iron skyscraper in the city, once the city's tallest, The Knights of Pythias Building, towered 11 stories above the corner of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts at the gateway to the Avenue. It was a majestic presence at the 200 block from 1907 until its demolition in 1967.
One nearby flatiron was to survive Ed Zebrowski's wrecking ball; the Hammond Block at 75 Massachusetts Avenue at New York Street. Originally a school and offices after its 1874 construction, the Italianate three-story would devolve into a liquor store and fishing bait and tackle until it was eventually vacant and slated for demolition by the late 1970s.
By that time, the area was blighted. Most storefronts were boarded. Stout Shoes was about the only remaining business from the heyday years.
An Indianapolis Star editorial, Avenue of Dreams, appeared in the November 27, 1980 edition. It signaled, if not restoration of Massachusetts Avenue, at least perhaps, a revitalization of that dream,
“Not many Hoosiers remember the years when Massachusetts Avenue was a grand view, but it once was and it soon will begin to take on a new grandeur.
In those day, famous actors could be seen walking down the sidewalk toward the Murat Theater. The avenue was not only a showplace but a main thoroughfare for people living on the Northeastside and a principle road out of the city.
Then came an age of blight which lasted for many years.
Now a project is in the works to develop condominiums, apartments, and office and shopping space in the 300 block.
If all goes well, and it should, the first block of Massachusetts Avenue will soon be a showplace again and a place where people can enjoy the city's unique charm.”
And then it would begin.
Attorney Henry J. Price would purchase the Hammond Block and begin its renovation at the very gateway to Massachusetts Avenue in 1979. And as early as 1982, a lightly refurbished apartment building such as the Massala at 345 Massachusetts Avenue was renting apartments for as low as $100 a month. Budget minded students, living on the upper floors of the apartment building,while Brother Junipers restaurant had dual storefronts on both Mass Ave and Alabama Street.
Not long after, Scott Keller would begin buying storefronts in the 400 block with a savvy business plan in mind for the renovation of the Avenue. It would involve willing, even eager, co-conspirators in the world of art, as he relayed to writer, Will Higgins, in a June 26, 2014 article in The Indianapolis Star,
“We wanted the galleries in there to start everything off,” said...Keller, a real-estate developer who in 1980 began buying vacant Mass Ave. storefronts, cheaply.
“We wanted a lot of retail; we wanted independent restaurants of quality. Art galleries got people to visit the area, generated interest, so we rented to them very inexpensively.”
Someone had to be the first of the willing and eager. And it was Patrick King.
427 Massachusetts Avenue.
Patrick King Contemporary Art opened to the public in October 1982 will daily hours Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
King sat down with Indianapolis News writer Marion Garmel for an October 30, 1982 feature that includes his photograph sitting in a director's chair in the middle of his new gallery installed with art. Garmel describes the King Contemporary style in the article,
“Nothing in King's gallery vies for attention with the art. The floors are polished wood; the walls white.”
She quotes King about his thinking, when it comes to presentation,
“You're dealing with professional people, they have years of experience, some of their work is in museums, in prestige galleries...You don't cram it in three and four deep.”
King talks about his approach in working with artists as well,
“The primary responsibility of the dealer is to deal with the artist...I guess I look at art the way you look at people – and I don't want to get it confused with judging a book by its cover. You have to open yourself completely, you to them and they to you. You want that experience, that new experience. I would not treat their art any less that I would treat them.”
Garmel begins her article calling King an angry young man, and then let's him explain. He gets worked up about how art and artists are treated, often neglected, by the interior designers who settle for posters in place of original art,
“The era of the poster is beginning to disappear. That was the 1960s...You don't sell posters to corporate offices anymore...What people want in corporate offices is lots of good art – like an oasis where they can stop in the midst of a hectic day of word processing and contemplate.”
King seems to be wishing into existence a business market of dream clients for his new enterprise. His thoughts indicate an acute awareness of the business of art, the marketing of art, perhaps a good thing, if not great, for one starting just such a business.
Steve Mannheimer would cover King's first exhibit in a column in The Indianapolis Star, November 21, 1982, headlined, Strong show opens gallery. The column begins, about King himself,
“Patrick King has paid his dues to the Indianapolis art scene. First...as assistant director of the Herron Gallery...Then...a similar stint at Editions Limited.
...King's opening show...is a strong selection of 19 pieces by five artists. As might be expected from King's mixed background at both the avant-garde and commercial poles of the art world, he prefers to sit comfortably in the middle.
Yet he does lean a bit to the left. Although none of the pieces in the gallery is artistically radical to the point of controversy, they are all a far hue and cry from conservative.”
Mannheimer goes on to review the artworks by each of the five men in the show, artists Fred Struther, Will Northerner, Skip Koebbeman, David McCullough and Thomas Keesee.
About King's eye as gallerist, Mannheimer finishes his column,
“Patrick King has chosen his first show wisely. Although united by a refined predilection for funk, these works span the emotional spectrum from orange hot to blue funk. What we may reasonably expect from King in the future is not necessarily the quirky, but rather the subtle ability to define such nuance in a variety of contemporary directions.”
Something Happening Here.
Over the following weeks of 1982 and into 1983, Patrick King Contemporary Art was to be the sole art gallery in operation on Massachusetts Avenue. King's early success, if not in sales, was in critical coverage by newspaper writers. The continuous stream of articles, many with photos of art, likely fueled the art dreams of artist and would-be dealer alike. Not to mention, the real estate developers.
According to a January 4, 1983, Indianapolis News editorial, an area of several blocks along Massachusetts Avenue had been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. This designation, along with the recently passed Reaganomics of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, provided tax breaks for real estate development involving just such properties.
Looking back, it seems clear. The parts were in place for momentum to build. The future was so bright, well, you know, even at night.
Patrick King ruled the art avenue for the day and the weeks to follow, delivering show after show that generated buzz. Lyman-Snograss Gallery, near Herron on Delaware Street, although not in the Mile Square, was close enough to downtown, and contemporary enough in its exhibitions, to also to play a part in the burgeoning scene. And although the nearby Lockerbie Gallery on the 400 block of N East Steeet had definitely closed by January 1983, as reported by gallery owner Barbara Stokely, their longtime framer, James Cunningham, and his artist wife Kate, inspired by Patrick King, were looking at buildings on Massachusetts Avenue, to continue the Lockerbie legacy.
The head of steam Patrick King was generating on Massachusetts Avenue was not confined to artists, would-be dealers and real estate developers. Writers with a nose for a story were inspired to take a look.
In March 1983, Tom Lundberg Textiles was presented at Patrick King. The show was previewed with a short write-up and image in the Marion Garmel Indianapolis News column on March 4. But is was the column a couple of days later in The Indianapolis Star, on March 6, by Charles Ferruzza, a young, Butler journalism grad, and freelance writer, that covered the fiber art show with enthusiasm and panache,
“Thinking about miniature embroideries conjures up images of grandmother, chamomile tea and cross stitch. But the 20 silk embroideries by Thomas Lundberg, on display...(at) Patrick King Contemporary Art, prove the traditional art of stitched design has, in fact, been liberated from the sitting room.
Lundberg...spoke of his needlework pictures during the exhibit opening as ' personal metaphors.' Indeed, autobiography and travel experiences are the predominant themes in Lundberg's self-conscious pieces, rendering them as intimate as an open diary.”
Ferruzza goes on to describe the miniature 'samplers,' of what Lundberg calls “everyday play distilled,” (the pieces were tiny sized, 2 ½ inches by 4 ½ inches),
“...all of Lundberg's pieces are rather reminiscent of the Woodstock era, multicolored embroidered patches worn as 'strawberry statements' on jeans and denim vests. Lundberg, however, seems determined to avoid such associations, by presenting his works in large frames, complete with elegant unbleached cotton mats, and hanging them in an even line along the gallery's white walls.”
But his strong sense of narrative works against this imposed austerity. The even line has a distracting tendency to become a series of cartoon panels.
...Yet even if his diary might be a comic book, Lundberg describes a magical realm within its covers. And under those covers, his dream net captures fragments of a tradition associated with lavender, old lace and bed pulls – if not bell bottoms – while still managing to bring forth embroideries as modern and universally personal as a Polaroid snapshot.”
A later exhibit at Patrick King, was Suite Metropolis: New York, Washington and Indianapolis – Photography by Janica Yoder.
Again Ferruzza would return his attention to Patrick King when wrote a detailed review that appeared in The Star on May 8. The review was more critical in tone, but still thoughtful in its observation,
“As much as the show's title conjures the symphonic abundance and hubbub of urban life, this series of Cibachrome process prints contradicts our expectations.
...In Ms. Yoder's metropolitan fairy tale, New York City is a wild-eyed Cinderella and Washington, D.C. and Indianapolis, to varying degrees, are her dim-witted stepsisters.
New York springs to life as a focus of movement and unbridled energy; teen-agers on the streets, graffiti on the walls – attractively lurid, potentially dangerous.
...Washington...carries and entirely different tone: formidable, imposing and cold. Highly formal, painfully reverent, and elegant in a rather glossy 'National Geographic' mode.
Indianapolis is ...flat, stodgy, and oh so middle class...a spread-out stuffy suburb of kitschy concrete toy palaces, phony haciendas, and crackerbox model homes.”
Ferruzza gives a little, then takes away more, in his summation of the show,
“Although most viewers should find Suite Metropolis visually sumptuous, the implied commentary will come across as, if not insincere, simply uninspired. Janica Yoder is certainly master of her craft, if not her genre.”
Barbara Stokely, director/owner of the former Lockerbie Gallery, a stone's throw from King's location, would become a freelance art writer appearing in The Star around the same time that her former framer and his artist wife, James and Kate Cunningham, would rent a storefront at 318 Massachusetts, in a building owned by Harry Stout of Stout Shoe fame.
Stokely's review of a show by Ronald Markman at Patrick King would appear in the September 18 edition of The Star. The exhibit consisted of colorful paintings on wood surrounded by humorous cartoon doodles, all by the Brooklyn-born, I.U. Bloomington instructor. Her column begins with a quote from the artist, as Markman admits about his art, “Sometimes I just can't control myself.”
From her description of the show, it does sound a bit out there in part, and obsessive in part, kind of a bi-polar two-person in one-man show. Consisting of eleven painted wood constructions surrounded around their perimeters by comics, or etchings, or doodles – it's not clear – of a cast characters the artist draws for laughs. But with a caveat; “I don't want to be clever, just funny,” Stokely writes, quoting his words.
Stokely further notes that Markman credits the Marx Brothers and Charlie Chaplin as influences of his cast of goofy figures. He tells the writer that he has doodled since his childhood, when he dreamed of being a cartoonist. And he has been populating a make-believe land called Mufka since his Fulbright Scholar days decades prior.
It is purported, in the column, that those comic influences infiltrate his painted wood constructions as well. The painted wood constructions that sound somewhat dull and rickety, compared to his fantasy land of doodad drawings,
“All of Markman's (paintings) consist of layered repetition of shapes and frames within frames. It is hard not to notice, however, that these frames are somewhat causally constructed without properly mitered corners or any congruent precision.”
Markman's explanation to the writer,
“...I'm not too handy with a saw...(describing his first attempts, but eventually)...The result was the way things were meant to be and this is ultimately what I wanted.”
Considering Markham trained under Josef Albers at Yale for four years, it is no wonder he aspired to a hard edge and geometrical perfection at first. And if he was not there yet in his paintings on wood, they could exist in a limbo between Albers' precision and his own Mufka's mayhem, in the limbo of King's white walls.
Between dreamy chaos and conceptual perfection is the place of living, of action and of experimentation.
Art is a laboratory haunted by time, and galleries gather the ghosts. The spirit of art, creator of worlds. Past, present and future, failures and successes. And some just plain old attempts.
Patrick, the first on Mass Ave, alive and well, at the end of one year. Time is space. Space is time. The power of love, of money, pauses to breath between notes. Forms from the shadows of skid row, would be coming for him soon...
Mark Diekhoff, December 2025
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